Female captains make up just under 3% of cruise ship captains worldwide – but this number is slowly growing. Women now comprise 20% of the industry workforce, with between 5 and 20% of women in officer roles, depending on the cruise line.
Anna Ivanovna Shchetinina (Russian: ???? ???????? ????????; 26 February 1908 – 25 September 1999) was a Soviet merchant marine sailor who became the world's first woman to serve as a captain of an ocean-going vessel. Shchetinina was born at the Okeanskaya Station near Vladivostok in a family of a railway switchman.